Those aren't Christmas decorations....

Apologies for two posts in a row about trash, but 'tis the season! As grasses and forbs die back, the accumulated litter from summer and fall is revealed in all its trashy glory near the stormwater outlets.

On a recent free morning, I grabbed a heavy black trash bag, my gloves, and trusty trash grabber and headed to the Greenway for a quick impromptu cleanup. I was expecting the usual mix of beverage containers (would that an effective, comprehensive Bottle Bill could be implemented....), fast food and convenience store litter, and assorted plastic miscellanies washed into the basins from the surrounding gutters.

What I did NOT expect was 40+ bags of dog poop, seemingly from a single dog given the uniform bag style and, let's say, heft of the contents, within the space of a few meters. 

Please, friends and neighbors...don't do this. It's been previously noted that there is no poop fairy to clean up your dog's waste, but that's not accurate.

It's me. I'm the poop fairy. I, and other volunteers, spend our limited free time picking up other people's trash, to make our environment more pleasant for humans and wildlife. It's already kind of a gross job, and unnecessary dog's excrement magnifies the grossness exponentially. 

I get it. It's nice to walk with your dog, unencumbered. But throwing trash in our shared greenspace is not the answer. And don't take my (admittedly biased) word for it. According to the EPA:

Pet waste in waterbodies can make people and animals sick, promote weed and algae growth, and damage the health of the ecosystem in and around the water. Pet waste is a leading source of nutrient and bacteria pollution in urban streams and waterways.

So let's take care of our natural spaces and waterways the same way we take care of our beloved pets: do what's best for them, even if it's a little inconvenient. 

It's a park, not a landfill!

All this fall the Greenway has had a crew of hardworking volunteers from Iowa Master Naturalists and Johnson County Master Gardeners coming out on Sundays to cut woody brush along the trail. This past Sunday, as we wrapped up regularly scheduled sessions for the season, the team ventured over to nearby Whispering Meadows Wetland Park, where the low water level after a stretch of rain-free days revealed a massive amount of litter collected in the pond. 

Palm-sized (actual) clamshells
also found in the pond.

Both due to its location and its geography, Whispering Meadows is a magnet for trash blowing and flowing in from the nearby apartments and highway. Like the Sycamore Greenway, Whispering Meadows serves as stormwater management for nearby neighborhoods: as the stormwater flows through it carries anything found in its path through parking lots and roadside gutters: plastic water bottles, beverage cans, plastic bags, tires, plastic clamshells, glass bottles, and more were laboriously pulled out of the heavy muck, bagged, and stacked for the city to haul away. 

The work was both discouraging and rewarding: the sheer amount of trash made for an easy and obvious "before and after" contrast. Each container was filled with heavy, wet mud that had to be shaken loose, or they would weigh down the bags to be hauled around the pond. The work was done under the noisy supervision and disapprobation of several Canada geese, with nearly half the shoreline being tidied in 90 minutes of intense effort. 

If you aren't a supporter of a strong and effective National Bottle Bill, regular trash cleanups will almost certainly make you a convert. Imagine each of those water bottles, each of those beer cans and liquor bottles, with a quarter deposit...how many would end up in the muck? 

Pond snails make use of
unconventional habitat

If you don't think that single-use plastics are a problem...start picking up litter in your neighborhood. Pull dozens, hundreds of stinking plastic bags out of the mud along your local rivers and ponds, and see if you change your mind.

As we head into a holiday season that is often celebrated with a massive amount of consumption and its related packaging waste, spend a moment considering where that trash ends up and what that means for our communities and our planet. Maybe after one of those holiday meals, grab a bag and go for a walk around your neighborhood to collect wayward trash before it ends up in a waterway. 

But enough soapboxing. There aren't enough thanks to do justice to the efforts of volunteers Joel, Linda, Rhonda, and Patrick, sacrificing their time (and their shoes) to help improve our natural spaces here in Iowa City. Many thanks also to Tyler and the City of Iowa City for consistently supporting volunteer efforts to make our city a great place to live.  

Before

During

After

What a haul!

Read more musings (rants? screeds?) about litter:

• Sycamore Greenway Friends: America Recycles...or does it?
• Sycamore Greenway Friends: 152 Pieces Per Person
• Sycamore Greenway Friends: There Is No "Away"

Perils of a City Mouse

One of the wonderful things about living in a city is the easy, free access to parks, trails, and other amenities that make life pleasant for everyone, regardless of wealth or social status. The Sycamore Greenway is available for everyone to walk, run, cycle, watch birds, explore flora, investigate insects. You can swim in pools, work out on treadmills and other equipment, play basketball, all without pricey membership fees. What's not to love?

Enter "the detour". 

A city is a collection of thousands of people, each with basic needs and wants that a successful city strives to meet. A growing city needs places for people to live; an aging city needs to update its amenities as they lose their luster (and, for example, tens of thousands of gallons of water daily in the case of one amenity).

In the short term, the trail closure stretched
all the way to the Sycamore Apartments!

When the orange barricades went up along the trail a few weeks ago, I knew the city's South District plan was beginning to catch up. I'd seen the maps, showing all the agricultural fields filled in with planned neighborhoods, the extension of McCollister Boulevard cutting across the open midpoint of the trail. 

I asked, first a passing fluorescent-shirted man with survey equipment on the trail, and later the city, what was happening? How long would our trail be closed? The initial answer was related to a sanitary sewer connection for the new development east of the trail; the closure time estimated at a couple of weeks. Ok. That doesn't sound bad. 

"The tubes." The future road will go over them, and water will
be able to flow under the road through these culverts. 

As the weeks passed, and the trees were cut down, and the trio of massive cement tubes laid in the basin alongside Sherman, I inquired again. What's happening with our trail?

The answer.

The city, as always in my experience, was prompt and happy to answer questions. A road was being built to connect the new development to the existing neighborhood around Sherman, and it would cross over the "tubes" (culverts) that had been placed (similar to the crossing at Gable Street). And yes, a sanitary sewer was connecting to the Greenway east of the Birds in Flight intersection. There is also a planned road in the same area which will someday cross the trail but not as part of the current construction. 

Looking east toward the new development. The culverts
have been covered, and the road graded.

Ouch. My initial instinct was less than gracious. There goes our Greenway. Thus begins its degradation, the loss of habitat for the sparrows and crawfish, the mink and the cranes, who have called the area home for decades, for generations of their lives. The inexorable advance of houses, eating the rich farmland, which had eaten the rich prairies. 

"There used to be some nice trees there!" 
Looking north toward the new development, from the "sanitary sewer"
connection east of the Birds in Flight sculpture.

And yet! 

How wonderful it is that a whole new neighborhood of people will be able to walk on our trail, will be able to see the birds and visit the flowers each year! That people will have another option to get around town, another connection in our South District that lets people traffic flow where it needs to go. And that the Sycamore Greenway--a stormwater management system--will continue to do its job managing stormwater for the neighborhoods that surround it. 

That's the challenge of cities. They must meet the needs of so many different people, with so many different requirements and expectations. Perhaps I like a local park just as it is, with open spaces and prairie plantings. But there could be 50, 100 more people who would love to see it filled with pickleball courts, or a boisterous dog park, or challenging outdoor fitness course. Any change is difficult for people who like the status quo. But change is inevitable, and we count on decision makers to implement change in a positive way.

The planned development, showing the new road crossing the trail at left,
and a future road going south near the center.

 

Sparrows don't pay taxes. Mink can't call in to city council meetings and complain about the loss of their homes. The cranes who have lived near the wetlands for decades lack the appropriate paperwork to claim ownership. But human families need places to live, and the South District is a wonderful place to live. The city has planned its growth in the area, and its plans generally keep the Greenway intact, though its character will no doubt change dramatically in coming decades. 

We can continue to support our Greenway even as it changes, first and foremost by using it, for transportation and for recreation. We can pick up litter to keep it from flowing into our Greenway. We can lobby decision makers to require greenspace and green connections be included in all future developments so both people and wildlife have a place to go--speak up for the sparrows and the mink! Imagine if you could walk or ride a trail like the Sycamore Greenway, flanked by natural greenspaces its entire length, from one end of town to the other! 

Far from the Usual Crowd

Spend enough time in an area, and you learn the rhythms of the life that shares that place. When the first Golden Alexanders normally bloom in the spring; when the Pale Purple Coneflowers appear, followed by the regular Purple Coneflowers; when the mid- and late-summer Silphiums take over. The precise timing may be swayed by rainfall or temperature from year to year, but the sequence generally remains the same.

Recently, as early October sees most flowers faded or long since gone to seed, a flash of bright yellow way down in one of the basins near Gable Street caught my eye. It was low-growing and isolated amid browning grasses, far from the usual crowd of goldenrods that remain nearer to the trail. A peek through the camera lens confirms my hunch upon seeing the disheveled yellow buttons fringed with weirdly shaped tapered petals. Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale)!

Spot the Sneezeweed!

In previous years I had seen a small patch near the trail entrance of Sherman Drive, but having lost track of that one I figured it simply didn’t thrive amid the crowded grasses and other assertive plants. Sneezeweed likes moist soil, and parts the low-lying parts of the basins along the trail can provide more consistent moisture than the higher, drier parts of the basins closer to the trail. It is a late-blooming flower, bringing a pop of yellow long after many of the rest of the yellow-flowering goldenrods and others have turned to fluff.

Though there are several colorful cultivars, our Sneezeweed here appears to be the native variety. Its common name comes not from its pollen inducing allergies, but from the occasional use of its dried powders as snuff.

Tiny Yellow Flowers

I’ll admit it. I’m a fan of many weeds. (This should be no surprise, given the glowing write-ups I’ve given to many “assertive” non-natives here in the past). Growing up, the tough plants that grew in the gravelly alley behind our house, or the vacant lots near the railroad tracks where I wandered, imprinted on my psyche in a way those distant, more ecologically valuable native prairie plants—unknown, way off in a preserve—never did.

That’s why I stopped one day mid-run to inspect a specimen growing on the curb, tall and green above the sadly browned dormant turfgrass. The flowers were tiny and delicate, pale yellow, with twenty or so flat ray florets that look like they were snipped with pinking shears. Once I made a connection, I saw it everywhere: Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola).

There are many points of interest on Prickly Lettuce, a slender but tall-growing non-native that can often be seen growing in cracks along sidewalks or curbs that have escaped mowing, the pretty little flowers being just one of them. The flowering stem can grow quite tall, with the clustered buds at the ends of drooping panicles sometimes at eye level. You may see the flowers open in the morning, and return in the afternoon to find them closed up tight against the heat of the day.

The leaves have jaggedly lobed edges, as if they had been irregularly chomped, and clasp around the stem. A row of rather flimsy prickles runs along the underside of the central vein of the leaf. The seeds are attached to a wispy white pappus and form a sphere similar to dandelions, though smaller and with fewer seeds. Also like dandelions, the stems and leaves bleed white sap when damaged.

Originally from Eurasia/the Mediterranean, Prickly Lettuce can be found throughout North America. It is thought to have been inadvertently introduced as a tag-along with desirable seeds that were brought to the continent, where it made itself at home in a wide range of habitats. It can be a pest in agricultural fields, though some bees will visit its flowers for nectar or pollen.

Like those other weedy plants, the scrappy habits and subtle prettiness of Prickly Lettuce are endearing to me.

Sources/Additional Reading:

• https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/prickly-lettuce
• http://www.misin.msu.edu/facts/detail/?project=misin&id=452&cname=Prickly+lettuce
• https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/prickly_lettuce.htm

Sand Prairie

 

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting two beautiful sand prairies in Iowa over the past year: Corriell Nature Preserve, a Bur Oak Land Trust property near Atalissa, and Big Sand Mound Nature Preserve, near Muscatine. Both preserves have restricted access to the public; the visit to Corriell was part of an Iowa Master Naturalists outing, and Big Sand Mound has a field day every few years where the public is welcomed to visit and learn about the unique ecosystem and its inhabitants (IMN was also treated to a “herp field trip” at Big Sand Mound this summer).

Sand prairies can be formed when sand is carried out of nearby river valleys by winds and deposited, often forming hills (known as aeolian sand hills, “aeolian” pertaining to the actions of winds), the sand having been initially left in the wake of melting glaciers. The dry substrate can allow unique plants to flourish, and both Corriell and Big Sand Mound had an abundance of attractive and charismatic flowering plants including Whorled Milkweed, Spotted Bee Balm, and Opuntia Cactus. They can also serve as a safe haven for threatened animals; Big Sand Mound monitors populations of mud turtles and wildlife surveys at Corriell have revealed it is inhabited by endangered bats.

Having learned about these uncommon types of prairie, I was intrigued to learn more about Iowa City’s own Sand Prairie, less than a mile away from the Sycamore Greenway.  

Iowa’s City’s Sand Prairie, acquired by the city in 2005, is a 38-acre remnant that was protected from development by local activists (development of a nearby subdivision proceeded, displacing a population of around 50 Ornate Box Turtles, which were moved by the Iowa DNR to make way for the houses). It is believed to be a prairie remnant, one of those rare scraps of land in our state that managed to escape the plow (though it likely was grazed and mined for sand).

"Not your neighborhood Honey Locust"

Sloping from just west of Wetherby Park down to S. Gilbert near Napoleon Park, the park is edged with woods along its perimeter and pocked with a variety of shrubs—including numerous stumpy Honey Locusts. Not your familiar, neutered neighborhood Honey Locusts standing tall and tidy in front of a house, oh no. These are your wild, feisty locusts sporting hundreds of menacing pointy red thorns as long as your finger. These and other scrubby woody plants could be controlled with burns (Sand Prairie was burned in 2015 in fact, though it seems overdue for another!).

Tall spikes of yellow-flowered Common Mullein abound; this velvet-leaved non-native has made itself at home here. There is also copious poison ivy blanketing the grass in many areas, with no mowed paths or trails; not a place for a casual jaunt but suitably pantsed and bootsed one can wander to the heart’s content.

Tall spikes of Common Mullein abound

Despite these challenges, Sand Prairie is enchanting. Once you venture over the hill and out of sight of Gilbert St., it feels secluded and quiet. Although overcome by invading grasses and scrub, there are pockets of small flowers that have maintained a foothold. Humongous bumble bees make the rounds of the Bee Balm, and to my delight grasshoppers and katydids abound. During my visit a pair of American Kestrels passed overhead and a tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbird perched on a tree branch as an unseen Field Sparrow sang in the distance.

Tune in to the Sycamore Greenway Friends Facebook or Instagram pages this week to see some of the floral and faunal neighbors making their home in this Iowa City gem.

 

Sources/Additional Reading:

• Iowa City South District Plan (2015)
• Iowa City Natural Areas Inventory and Management Plan (2018)
• Iowa City Natural Areas: Inventory, Management Needs and Assessment (February, 2016)

Grasshopper Mindfulness

Walking along the Sycamore Greenway, or other trails through natural areas, has always been calming. "It's cheaper than therapy!" I've chirped on more than one occasion when discussing my outings. On days that are particularly calm and sweltering, when the birds are loafing hidden in the shade and there isn't much going on in the flowers, I snap on the macro lens and shift gears into a walking "grasshopper meditation."

In the summer, almost every step in the grass sends tiny critters hopping or flying for cover. I walk slowly, watching my feet, and following one of the tiny hoppers with my eyes. Then slowly, carefully, I drop into a deep squat and inch closer...closer...closer until the lens is right up on the hopper and snap photos.

I notice the tiny nubs of wings indicating it's not yet an adult. I notice the speckled compound eyes and the segmented antennae. I see the fine downy hairs on its face and body, and the delicate pads on its feet flanked by itty-bitty pointed hooks that help the nymph cling to foliage. I see their powerful hind legs poised to launch the hopper 20 times the length of its little body, and I see the slender tibiae of those legs armed with an array of pointed spines that can be used for defense if a predator gets too close.

While I'm down there, I listen to the rhythmic buzz of a nearby katydid, hear the wind rustle through dogwood leaves, feel the sun on my skin as it peeks out from a passing cloud. I look around and see other grasshoppers clinging to the tips of blades of grass, or a quick beetle awkwardly scuttling through a mass of plantain leaves toward cover, or a diligent weevil digging at a leaf with its marvelous snoot. 

I see the speck on a rough, broad Prairie Dock leaf that turns out to be a slender moth, with metallic patterned scales glinting on its neatly arranged wings. I inspect a leaf with holes chewed around the veins, searching in vain for the insect that caused the damage. Sweat trickles down my back as I drop one knee to the ground to lean closer, looming in with the invasive lens until my target leaps away, or I start to feel silly snapping dozens of photos of the same motionless hopper and force myself to stand.

Then on to the next grasshopper, this one green with a dark stripe flanking its back on either side. As it attempts to hide behind a blade of grass, peeking out first one side, then the other, I smile at how clever and effective this simple evasion tactic is. When it tires of peekaboo, it springs away to safety. 

I can't identify the different grasshopper species I see. There are little brown ones, and little green ones. There are the "gravel" hoppers with their mottled brown and gray coloring to blend in perfectly with rocky gray alleys. There are grasshoppers with round, bulbous heads and grasshoppers with angular, slanted heads. I can see the same type of grasshopper over and over again, and each encounter is new. 

While I'm stalking grasshoppers, I'm not thinking about all the ills of the world, or the work task looming in a few days, or the chores left undone at home. I'm not thinking about anything at all, really, except this moment in time, with this one grasshopper that I'll never see again. Am I the only human it will encounter this closely? Will this little nymph survive to reproduce, or will it be snatched up and eaten by a bird later that day? 

It's a type of walking meditation, a lesson in mindfulness combined with communing with the minuscule individuals that are, any other day, overlooked as nothing more than a hopping speck swept aside by an unaware, unhesitating step.

It's All Connected, Part II

A recent trash cleanup
along McCollister Blvd.

Everything is connected. We're all connected, to each other in our communities, to the trees, grasses, forbs, algae, and other photosynthesizing organisms to provide both oxygen to breathe and food to eat, to people down the block and around the world in the people we elect to pass laws and the decisions they make.

These connections have been a common refrain on this blog, particularly when it comes to water quality. Given the Sycamore Greenway's purpose in collecting and moving stormwater from our neighborhoods to its constructed wetlands, and beyond to the Iowa River and Mighty Mississippi, all the way to the Gulf. Each drop of water that lands in your yard has the potential to move along these water trails. 

1 Mississippi shared an amazing "River Runner" visualization that allows you to follow the path of that water drop: zoom in on your neighborhood, or even your backyard, and you can see how water drains and moves through neighborhoods, flowing into rivers and streams. 

The path of water to the Iowa River via the Sycamore Greenway

Now imagine you're a plastic bottle taking the same path. The Greenway and other stormwater management systems can sometimes filter out large pieces of litter to prevent them from getting into our waterways (allowing them to be collected by the wonderful volunteers at events like the in April), but sometimes a heavy rain washes trash directly from roadsides or parking lots into the Iowa River and other waterways.

That's why Sycamore Greenway Friends regularly patrols some of the more "litter-ary" streets around the Greenway to pick up trash before it has a chance to move along into the stormwater system. Not only does it do a small part to protect our aquatic wildlife and water quality, but it also helps keep our neighborhoods looking nice. And maybe even reduce some of the trash that finds its way into the Greenway cells throughout the year. It's win-win-win! 

Is there an area in the South District that could use a cleanup? You can do your part with a trash bag and pair of gloves, but if that's not an option you can request a small cleanup via this form.

A recent trash cleanup near
Whispering Meadows wetlands

Romance Among the Silphium

The lady, with meal

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

- William Butler Yeats

A glittering jewel of an arachnid, sparkly gold against the bright green leaf of a Cup Plant, holding a shriveled prize--perhaps an aphid. From below, a swift fellow approaches, waving his decoratively tufted forelegs as if flagging down a passing motorist for assistance. The glittery gal flees with her lunch, leaving the male dancing with himself. 

I first met the elegant dancer few years ago, a male Tutelina elegans jumping spider, but this was the first time I've encountered the object of his passion. I can see why he adores her, with her brilliantly robust abdomen and intense array of eyes. Not to mention her no-nonsense attitude: who has time for courtship when you've got a delicious aphid ready to devour? 

The gentleman

The gentleman below,
lady in upper right

Once she disappeared into the foliage, the male continued his dance over and around the leaves, first sidling to the left, then the right, all the time brandishing his forelegs in what one can only assume to be a beguiling display of arachnid choreography and masculinity. 

The video below doesn't do justice to his moves, but I assure you it was quite alluring.

Cactus? In Iowa?

An ornate box turtle named Cuatro, age 60ish.

Taking a field trip from the Greenway today to explore a nearby treasure....

Near Muscatine is a little-known remnant of our state’s unique natural history, dotted with prickly pear cactus and home to several rare and endangered species, called Big Sand Mound Preserve. The name is apt: a huge mound of sand, in places over 100 feet deep, forming a sand prairie, along with surrounding forest and wetlands.

The 510-acre preserve is not open to the public save for a “field day” every three years, though a group of Iowa Master Naturalists were recently treated to a tour to learn about some of the species that are being monitored in the preserve, including the western hognose snake and the yellow mud turtle, as well as ornate box turtles.

With Iowa’s status as one of the most transformed states in the nation, it’s fortunate that this land was preserved from development. Much of the land that became Big Sand Mound Preserve was originally owned by MidAmerican Energy, which set it aside to be protected in the late 1970s after learning about its ecological significance (Bayer added another 90 acres a few years later). Since then it has been a researcher’s delight, a small scrap of what once was and will never be again, requiring significant resources to manage and maintain.

The preserve's benefactors loom
large in the landscape.

Imagine the fate of this unique ecosystem if not for the beneficence of two companies with the foresight and resources to protect it almost 50 years ago, and the countless hours that have been spent studying and maintaining it.

Now imagine how many unique ecosystems have been lost in the few hundred years since our state was turned over to agriculture. Imagine the streams that once teemed with trout that have been lost to pollution from animal confinements, or the diverse prairie that contained thousands of species, plowed up and replaced with a single cultivated type of corn or soybeans. The natural world is a treasure, something we don’t even have the capacity to put a price tag on because each remnant is irreplaceable.

Near the Greenway here in town is another sand prairie, a small remnant off South Gilbert Street. Without a benevolent corporate sponsor, the area surrounding it was developed and replaced with a housing subdivision, displacing more than 50 ornate box turtles. Local activists were able to protect just 38 acres of this unique ecosystem, which unfortunately is much degraded due to encroaching brush and lack of resources for the intensive management that would be required to restore and maintain it. If only ornate box turtles had property rights.

Identified as a Tile-Horned Longhorn Beetle

One of two western hognose snakes, getting its stats recorded.

Flags are used to mark turtle nesting spots.

A flock of pelicans pass overhead.